The Build Back Worse Bill

aka the Inflation Reduction Act

Build Back Worse. It seems every liberal outlet is showering praise on the Infrastructure Reduction Bill. The Hill calls it a “sweeping health and climate bill.” The AFL-CIO says, “The Inflation Reduction Act Is a Victory for Working People.” And Time has said, “The Inflation Reduction Act Is About to Jumpstart U.S. Climate Policy and Change the World.” But is any of this actually true? A closer look at the bill shows it’s all a lie.

As Washington Post reports, hidden inside the bill are huge giveaways to oil and gas:

In both public and private talks, Manchin has made clear that he views approving the Mountain Valley Pipeline as a top priority. Supporters have characterized it as a way to help make the United States an exporter of liquefied natural gas, which the United States is sending to help Europe amid the war in Ukraine.

This pipeline has been described as a climate bomb.

Jamie Henn @jamieclimate

The Mountain Valley Pipeline is a 300 mile fracked gas pipeline that would create the CO2 emissions of 26 coal fired power plants. It's not a climate solution. It's a climate bomb.

These numbers are from an analysis done in 2017. They concluded that the pipeline project would produce 89,526,651 metric tons of emissions annually, the equivalent of 26 coal plants or 19 million passenger vehicles. That’s not a small impact.

And this pipeline isn’t the only give away to oil and gas. As Forbes reports:

In addition, at least 2 million acres of federal lands (or, if less, at least half the acreage for which expressions of interest have been submitted from potential bidders) must have been offered for oil and gas leases in the year before each proposed wind or solar right of way is issued. In practice, assuming sufficient expressions of interest are received by BLM, that means at least 20 million acres of federal lands must be offered in total for new oil and gas leases over ten years on a quarterly basis. Any interruption or suspension of oil and gas lease sales over the next decade for any reasons (including, apparently, if necessary environmental approvals cannot be obtained, if courts block the sales, if sellers express interest but fail to bid, or if a future administration suspends any oil and gas lease programs) would bring development of all new solar and wind power projects on federal lands to a screeching halt.

Offshore wind projects would face similar risks. Given the earlier stage of development of the U.S. offshore wind industry, the very large scale and complexity of offshore wind projects, and the lengthy, multi-year permitting process they must undergo, the dependence of their federal leases on the sale of unrelated leases for offshore oil and gas drilling may be a more existential threat. Under the proposed law, no lease for offshore wind development could be issued by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) in federal waters any time in the next ten years unless, at the time of each new lease of an offshore wind area, BOEM has within the prior twelve months also offered to sell a new oil and gas lease and, if any acceptable bids have been received for any offered tract, issued a lease. In addition, no less than 60 million acres of federal waters on the outer continental shelf must have been offered for oil and gas leases in the prior year, or no new offshore wind leases could be issued. In effect, over 600 million acres of federal waters must be offered (though unsold areas could be reoffered) for new oil and gas exploration and production. Failure to maintain the required annual pace of offshore oil and gas leases would block all subsequent offshore wind leases.

The math on this means that 600 million acres of federal waters would be opened up to oil and gas as well as 20 million acres of public lands. This isn’t cutting emissions, this is exploding them.

Remember that the latest IPCC report came to the conclusion that there can be no new fossil fuel infrastructure if we are to actually address the crisis. And Fatih Birol, the International Energy Agency’s executive director and one of the world’s foremost energy economists, told the Guardian: “If governments are serious about the climate crisis, there can be no new investments in oil, gas and coal, from now – from this year.”

UN Secretary General António Guterres said in April of 2022:

Investing in new fossil fuels infrastructure is moral and economic madness.  Such investments will soon be stranded assets — a blot on the landscape and a blight on investment portfolios.  But, it doesn’t have to be this way.

And what about the actual climate provisions in the bill? They mostly consist of tax credits and subsidies. With nearly 2/3s of the US living paycheck to paycheck, this incentives are designed to only apply to the rapidly vanishing middle class and to the rich and corporations which are driving the crisis. Tax credits aren’t much benefit to the working class when they can’t afford to buy a new electric car, or solar panels, or windows.

And many of these subsidies are for carbon capture - about which the Environment Working Group has said:

Avoiding climate catastrophe requires immediate and dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that are possible only with a significant investment of public resources in proven mitigation measures, beginning with eliminating fossil fuel use and halting deforestation. Carbon capture and storage, or CCS, and carbon capture, utilization and storage, or CCUS, will not address these core drivers of the climate crisis or meaningfully reduce greenhouse emissions, and should not distract from real climate solutions.

The bill could have amounted to something better than horrible, if it wasn’t full of poison pills and stripped of provisions that would actually help the working class.

Warren Gunnels @GunnelsWarren

Our Amendments 11:31pm Cut Medicare drug prices by 50%: 1-99 1:15AM Expand Medicare: 3-97 4:01AM Civilian Climate Corps: 1-98 7:48AM Extend Child Tax Credit: 1-97 9:38AM Strike Fossil Fuel Breaks: 1-99 It always seems impossible until it's done. Never give up.

Bernie’s amendments show how terrible the bill is. They also expose the uniparty - Democrats and Republicans both only support their corporate donors. Cut drug prices? Resounding no. Expand Medicare? Never. Create a civilian climate corps that would provide good paying jobs and actually do something to fight climate change? Hell no. Extend the child tax credit and reduce childhood poverty by 30-50%? Let them die. And the best for last - get rid of the ridiculous fossil fuel giveaways? Of course not, let’s be honest, the oil and gas donations are far too good to vote against that.

But after exposing the weaknesses of the bill, Bernie went ahead and voted yes on it. When he could have killed it with his vote…Bernie refused to play hardball. What would Manchin have done in his shoes? He would have killed the bill, we’ve seen it before.

And to add insult to injury, the bill is entitled The Inflation Reduction Act. But the Congressional Budget Office has stated:

In calendar year 2022, enacting the bill would have a negligible effect on inflation, in CBO’s assessment. In calendar year 2023, inflation would probably be between 0.1 percentage point lower and 0.1 percentage point higher under the bill than it would be under current law, CBO estimates.

What’s in a name? Apparently nothing. The Democrats named it that to try to dupe citizens into believing it would actually do something about the record inflation that is devastating the working class and feeding into record corporate profits.

In fact, analysis by Real Progressives shows that it would make inflation worse.

When the fifteen percent tax is added to consumer prices at the same time as the Fed’s ill-conceived rate hike also contributes to making everything more expensive, we may see completely out-of-control inflation that can only be mitigated with drastic federal action to initiate price controls. More likely, massive government spending to allow poor and working middle-class Americans to afford to purchase the much more expensive goods and services will be enacted. 

Taxes on the rich being passed down to the working class…we’ve seen that before. It never ends well.

The Inflation Reduction Act is not simply a bad bill, it is another step down the road to the collapse of civilization and extinctions of many species on earth, possibly including our own. There’s a good reason why over 350 climate groups opposed the fossil fuel provisions in the bill. But the Senate went ahead and passed it anyway and called it a victory. Whatever good is in the bill, the fuel given to the fire of climate collapse far outweighs it.